


Unfinished Business

by thoughtful_constellations



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Children of Earth, M/M, Post-Children of Earth, janto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtful_constellations/pseuds/thoughtful_constellations
Summary: a.k.a  I decided to make this more painful than it already was"'I love you,' he whispered, repeating his last words and knowing they were as powerless to reach Jack as he was."





	Unfinished Business

There was an intense feeling of his lungs being pressed down upon, and it was difficult to breathe. In fact, there was no air passing through his chest at all, no matter how much he gasped and sputtered. His head was spinning, and he could barely see the room around him. Where was he? 

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He needed to find Jack, make sure he was alright. 

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t have much time to do it. 

There were lights in front of him, orange and soft. He blinked, and everything came into focus. A generic bedroom, dark and lonely, a single bed in the corner. The light, coming from beyond the dark window in front of him, was framing a figure sitting on the windowsill. A coat cascaded from his shoulders and down the wall. Ianto’s chest hurt--from heartache or shortness of breath he wasn’t sure.

“Jack,” Ianto said, reaching a hand out, but not quite touching. Something seemed wrong. He took a step closer. 

Jack’s forehead was pressed against the window, and he was shaking. No sound came from him but deep, uneven breaths. Orange beams of light shone through his hair, which was uneven and unstyled. 

“My fault,” Jack was talking to himself, staring down at his fingers, which lay open in his lap. His voice sounded broken. Empty. 

“It didn’t have to happen this way...where were you, Doctor? You could have prevented this…”

Ianto fell to his knees, everything rushing back. The gas, Jack’s arms around him, squeezing him tightly as though he thought he could prevent the life from leaving him.

His eyes were burning, but nothing fell from them.

“I love you,” he whispered, repeating his last words and knowing they were as powerless to reach Jack as he was.

Through the ringing in his head, he identified another sound in the room: a quiet ticking in the corner. He looked to his left and laid eyes on an old-fashioned clock sitting on the bedside table. His panic ebbed for just a moment, subdued by the steady clicks, and he rose to his feet, crossing over to the table. He glanced back to Jack every few moments, wishing he would turn and face him.

Ianto reached out to the clock, trying to pick it up, but the small object was too heavy to move. He watched the jerky movements of the tarnished metal hand. Technology may have surpassed the need for analogs, but Jack always had a fondness for old clocks; he usually kept one by his bed.

The minute hand ticked forward and his focus came rushing back to him, the urgency settling back into his mind. He looked up quickly and froze at what he saw.

In front of him was a simple, full length mirror. It was not the mirror that stopped him, nor Jack’s reflection behind him. It was his own reflection--or rather, the absence of one. He didn’t belong in this place.

You have to leave, said a voice in the back of his mind.

“No!” Ianto shouted, crossing the room in three strides and throwing his arms around Jack’s shoulders. He couldn’t feel him there, but he held on. There was no way he could leave, not yet. He had so much to say to Jack, so much to reassure him of, so many things to ask. It was now, when he knew he couldn’t speak, that he wanted nothing more than for Jack to hear him. To set a hand on his arm and pull him in, tell him that it was over and they’d won.

“Ianto,” Jack whispered, curling in on himself, “I’m so sorry…”

“I’m here, please,” he cried frantically, pressing his face into Jack’s neck, hand coming to rest in his hair. Jack did not move.

His eyes were closed, but everything began to grow brighter and brighter, until he could no longer sense Jack beneath him.

He did feel Jack’s hand on the small of his back, swaying in time to the dances at Gwen’s wedding. His cheek resting against Ianto’s, while Ianto stared at the stripes on his jacket shoulder with half-closed eyes and wondered if Jack would always be content to dance with him like this. If he’d get bored and leave one day, off in his own world with business that was more important than the team, more important than Ianto needing him around.

Jack’s hand on his neck, guiding him closer and kissing him. Ianto was surprised by the innocent nature of it, all these soft presses effortlessly masked behind cocky words and boasting grins. He knew Jack was capable of taking it farther. It would be easy to persuade him to lose his tie and jacket, back him up into the desk and carry on, but he didn’t, and his restraint melted Ianto’s heart.

Jack’s hand on his throat, trailing down from his gasping mouth and resting on his bare chest while they rocked back and forth. A stopwatch lay ticking beside them, forgotten. It was new territory for Ianto, he was nervous, but he trusted Jack in everything, especially this. 

The ticking became louder and louder, and everything faded away. All he could feel was Jack’s head under his hand.

Ianto knew what awaited him behind the surrounding light. Darkness. He liked to think he hadn’t felt dread sinking through him when Owen and Suzie described slipping out of the world into nothing, wanted to believe he wasn’t terrified, but it was impossible. 

Maybe they had been wrong. Maybe they’d seen nothing because it wasn’t quite their time yet, like the universe knew they’d be coming back and had kept them in a waiting place, in the dark. Maybe his father was waiting for him on the other side, with Owen and Suzie and Lisa and Toshiko, everyone he’d ever lost reunited.

If that was true, did it even matter? However long he waited, Jack would never come. He’d live on and on, and Ianto would be left waiting, without the comfort of knowing that one day Jack would die and he would have him back.

He supposed there was no point staying here, either, where Jack couldn’t see him. 

With this in mind, and a sense of reluctant abandon settling over his soul, he gripped Jack’s hair once again and let go.

 

* * *  
Jack sat up with a jolt, chills running down his neck. He brought a hand to the back of his head and glanced around the room wildly. 

His alarm was met with the indifferent answer of an empty room. He dropped his hand slowly, looking down at it and taking a deep breath. 

He slid his legs down from the window, stepping lethargically to the bed and lying down on it. For once in a long time, he felt like sleeping. If he stayed awake with the weight of all he'd done hanging over him for another minute, he was going to go insane. 

He glanced blankly up at the clock sitting a few inches from his face, watching the hands dance around each other. The second hand passing over the others, never touching.

With an empty huff of breath, he reached out and turned it away from him, dropping his face onto the scratchy pillow and going still.

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished watching day 4, so this was inspired by my heartache and the song Unfinished Business by the White Lies (Which I very much recommend)
> 
> tumblr: lesbinova.tumblr.com (Come talk to me!)
> 
> my ianto playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/drawacirclethatstheearth/playlist/4K2l22DH5H7UCypilTX66S?si=pVdLguBBSg6Xo5uyeG7ezg


End file.
